


Spaghetti-O's and Blanket Forts

by Calacious



Series: Comfort in November and December 2020 [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blanket Forts, Comfortember, Declaration of Love, Fluff, Kid!Fic, M/M, Meant To Be, Pre-Relationship, Some angst, non-canon compliant, preshow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 09:00:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27468373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calacious/pseuds/Calacious
Summary: It isn't until he's losing Castiel again that Dean remembers when they first met.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Comfort in November and December 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1996825
Kudos: 21
Collections: Comfortember 2020





	Spaghetti-O's and Blanket Forts

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Comfortember prompt: Blanket Fort
> 
> Mentions an event that I heard about happening recently in the show, but have not actually seen. Set pre-show and then in current events (as I've been told). Nothing happens when the boys are kids, other than feelings that are confusing. 
> 
> Hopeful ending.

Dean eyes the other boy cautiously. He’s smaller than Dean and Sammy, and he’s quiet, and there’s nothing overly suspicious about him, but there’s something about the kid that sets off Dean’s supernatural radar. 

“What’s your name?” Dean asks, jerking his chin in the kid’s direction.

The boy bites his lip, and looks down at his feet. He stutters out, “C...Cas...stiel.”

“Cas Steal?” Dean asks.

The boy shakes his head, and raises his eyes to meet Dean’s gaze, and Dean feels a pull right behind his belly button. It feels almost like a punch, and it makes Dean feel a little queasy, and excited at the same time. 

“Castiel,” the boy says much clearer, but no less quiet. 

“I’m Dean, and this is my brother, Sammy,” Dean says, nodding toward his younger brother.

“N...nice to...to meet you,” Castiel says, and he gives Dean a half smile that makes Dean’s heart leap up into his throat. 

“You wanna build a blanket fort with us?” Sammy asks, pulling away from Dean’s side to grasp Castiel by the hand and pull the other boy toward their hotel room. “We’re gonna make a castle, an’ Dean’s gonna make some popcorn, an’ I’m gonna pick out a movie. We can have a sleepover, an’ you can bring blankets from your room to make the fort gigantic.”

“Sammy,” Dean scolds, reaching for his little brother to keep him from pestering the other boy who looks a little overwhelmed. “We can’t just invite strangers into our hotel room to make blanket forts.”

“Castiel’s not a stranger,” Sammy says, stubbornly holding onto the other boy’s hand, and jerking away from Dean’s reach. “Right?” he asks Catiel. “You’re not a stranger, are you?”

“I...don’t think so?” Castiel says, brow furrowing in a way that is not at all cute, Dean tells himself.

“See, Dean,” Sammy says, jutting his chin out. The kid is far too stubborn for his own good, Dean isn’t looking forward to when Sammy hits his teenage years. Of course, he’ll be a teenager too, but he doubts he’ll be as stubborn as Sammy. “Castiel is not a stranger. We know his name, and ‘sides, he’s a kid. Kids aren't’ strangers.”

“When you don’t know them, anyone can be a stranger,” Dean reasons.

“But, we do know him,” Sammy insists. “His name is Castiel.”

“Just because you know someone’s name doesn’t mean they aren’t strangers,” Dean says. 

“It’s okay,” Castiel says, trying to pry his hand from Sammy’s grip. “I...I’ll go.”

“Hey, you kids! What’re you doing? You can’t play here. Get out of here, get!” The hotel manager starts heading in their direction, and Dean grabs Sammy’s hand and they run, Castiel in tow.

“I don’t have a room,” the little boy admits. “What do you...what do you think he’s going to do...if he, if he catches us?” Castiel is trembling, and Dean inwardly curses as he ushers his brother and the boy around the corner, and to their room. He slams the door behind them, and locks it, flipping the security lock in place.

Leaning against the door, Dean holds his breath as he listens for footsteps. The last thing they need is to run afoul of the hotel manager when their dad is out on one of his runs. He can’t know that Dean and Sammy are alone in the hotel room, that their dad has been gone for over a week. That would mean a call to the police or social services, and Dean doesn’t want to deal with everything that would entail. 

When the sound of running footsteps passes their door, followed by a loud curse, Dean allows himself to breathe, and he shoots a glare in Sammy’s direction. “That was close.”

“I...I’m sorry,” Castiel says, and he’s looking at his feet again, and Dean just wants to wrap him up in a hug, much as he’d do for Sammy after a nightmare. He shakes off that thought, and pushes off the door. 

“It’s not your fault,” Dean is quick to reassure the boy. 

“Do you think he’s coming back?” Castiel asks, gaze darting to the door, and back to Dean. “I--”

“Let’s build a fort,” Sammy says, cutting off whatever Castiel had been about to say. 

“Sammy, give it a rest,” Dean says, a little too curtly if the way that Castiel flinches is any indication. 

“But, I’m bored, and you promised,” Sammy says, slumping down on the bed, and shooting Dean one of his patented, beaten puppy dog looks. 

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose, closes his eyes and slowly counts to ten. When he opens his eyes, it’s to see that Castiel has sat down on the bed beside Sammy, and is whispering something to his brother that Dean can’t hear. Whatever it is makes Sammy smile, and Dean feels a stab of something ugly and mean, and he quickly tosses the feeling aside. 

“Okay,” Dean says, crossing the room to stand in front of Sammy and Castiel. “Fine, we’ll build a blanket fort.”

“Yes!” Sammy shouts and he pumps his hand in the air. He jumps on the bed and starts pulling at the blankets, intent on pulling them completely off. 

It doesn’t take long for both Dean and Castiel to be drawn into Sammy’s whirlwind of activity, and soon both beds are stripped of blankets and pillows, and Sammy is directing the building of a fort that rivals any fort they’ve ever built before. Castiel is a quiet, steady worker, and Dean finds himself watching the other boy, and wondering about this strange feeling that he seems to invoke in him. 

Sammy chatters on, oblivious to the reason for Dean’s silence, and unbothered by Castiel’s. He’s happy, though, and it helps take his mind off of their father’s overlong absence, and it makes Dean’s job of being a big brother a bit easier. It’s harder when Sammy’s unhappy, and there’s nothing he can do to ease his fear or worry about their dad’s frequent and prolonged absences. 

By the time that Sammy declares their fort complete, it’s time for Dean to prepare dinner -- a can of spaghetti-o’s and peanut butter bread. Inviting Castiel to stay for dinner, and then to join them in their fort is not even a question.

“I could...n’t intrude,” Castiel says when Dean asks him. He’s biting his lip, and he’s looking at Dean through the fringe of his bangs, and Dean really wants to gather the shy boy into his arms and give him a good, long hug, but he doesn’t.

“It’s not an intrusion if you’re invited,” Dean says, and he busies himself with getting dinner warmed up in the microwave while Sammy ushers Castiel into the blanket fort and turns the TV onto a cartoon. 

Dean joins them a few minutes later, dividing the food between them, his hand brushing against Castiel’s when he passes over a plate. There’s a spark of something that makes Dean pull his hand away quickly, and makes Castiel look away and blush. 

“Can Castiel stay the night?” Sammy asks after they’ve finished eating, and they’ve watched their fourth cartoon. He’s yawning, and Dean sees that Castiel’s eyelids are drooping, and that he’s having a difficult time staying upright. 

“We’ll have to ask, Cas won’t we?” Dean says. “How about it, Cas? Can you stay tonight, or do you have to get home?”

“Oh, I don’t have a home to get back to,” Castiel says matter-of-fact. He shrugs at the look that Dean gives him.

“You can stay with us,” Sammy says. “Can’t he, Dean?”

“We’ll have to ask Dad,” Dean says, though his heart tells him that, yes, they’re going to keep Castiel, whether their dad agrees or not. It’s not like his dad spends much time with them anyway, and it’ll be Dean taking care of Sammy and Castiel, and Dean is more than willing to do that.

“That...that’s not...I...I’ll be fine,” Castiel says. “I’d like to stay the night, though, if that’s okay?”

“You can stay forever if you’d like,” Sammy says, yawning. He’s out before his head hits the pillow that Dean had positioned behind him. 

Dean’s heart can’t help but echo Sammy’s thought, though he doesn’t give voice to it. Instead, he hands Castiel a pillow, and then settles in beside the other boy, and they are lulled to sleep by the sound of the TV.

The next morning, Castiel is gone, and Dean’s heart feels like it’s missing a chunk. He helps Sammy clean up the fort, his little brother seemingly oblivious to Dean’s inner turmoil over the disappearance of Castiel. 

“Where do you think he went?” Dean asks, not really expecting an answer.

“He went back to the angels,” Sammy says. “He’ll come back, though. He promised.”

Dean isn’t sure what to make of that, so he puts it behind him, as he does everything else, though his heart aches. And when their dad returns, they pick up their life and move on to the next town, the next hotel, the next hunt. 

It’s not until years later, when he’s hearing the word, “I love you,” that he remembers the shy little boy, the blanket fort, shared spaghetti-o’s and the way his heart lurched in his chest when Castiel left him the first time.

Dean remembers what his brother had said all those years ago, “He’ll come back...he promised,” and lets that soothe the fresh hole in his heart, as well as the memory of Sammy’s insistence that Castiel remain with them forever. Castiel will be back, and this time Dean won’t let him disappear. This time, Dean will say the words that his younger self wanted to say, but didn’t know how, and what his older self was too damn stubborn to say. 

“I love you, too,” he whispers. “I always have.” He hopes that will be enough to bring Cas back to him again. Has to believe that it will. That their love will win out in the end.


End file.
